


shame would not hold down your eyes

by svnflowerz



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F, Reyna is a lesbian, hunters of artemis critical, reyna leaves the hunters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25078402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svnflowerz/pseuds/svnflowerz
Summary: she came to the hunters because she knew she could never love a boy. she’s strong, like thalia says. once, reyna didn't need to be strong. with circe, everything had been taken care of. most of the time reyna is happy with the way her life ended up.she should be happy now.-or; in which reyna leaves camp jupiter, the hunters, the gods and learns the life the mortal world offers. the gods have always envied the ability to love that only mortals know.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> theres a lot of missing tags n relationship things bc this is the first time im posting smth w/o having it completley figured out and mostly written lol. this is not actually written in spite towards ricks recent tweets, this is out of spite to rick in General n also for me as a lesbian who loves reyna




“are you really leaving?” frank asks her again. she is packing up her things, though she doesn’t know how much she is allowed to bring to an eternal life in the hunt. 

reyna gestures to her bag, “i guess. sure looks like it.” he sighs at her and she stops packing for a moment. she sits down on the bed she’s had for years and frank joins her. together they look at the praetor quarters. 

frank leans into her side, “i don’t know what camp jupiter will look like without you.”

“it’s better now. we had the ages raised, only 18 to 25. no longer mandatory service.” reyna’s proud of that. she probably wouldn’t be able to leave now if she and frank hadn’t fixed some of new rome’s most disgusting practices. they had made it to the legal age. still, reyna wonders why they need an army at all. camp half blood is at its core a place to stay for personal protection, self defense to an extent. 

“you know,” frank says. “no one will be able to replace you. it’s just me now still in the army, with hazel starting high school with nico in new york.” 

reyna smiles at that, hazel and nico had gone back and forth between new rome, the high school starting up in new athens, and percy’s step father’s school in new york. reyna had pushed for the last, it’s their best chance at a childhood. “remember,” reyna teases, “when everyone thought you and hazel liked each other.”

frank makes a disgusted face and she laughs. this will make a nice memory. “yeah, it’s like they all thought i was a weirdo who likes middle schoolers.” 

“yeah,” reyna says. “you’re normal. or close to it, mr praetor.”

“i like it, i think, you know. it’s not as hard for me as it was for you. i never had to carry it alone.”

“i know.” reyna looks down at her hands. there are scars from years of things she never should have lived. she knows frank has similar ones marking his skin as well, she wonders if he would leave if he knew how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ty for reading !  
> im @zoenightshadez on tumblr and i have a pjo girls discord ! we r currently talking abt n reading the red pyramid :) the link to the discord is on my tumblr if ur interested


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u dont like things based on how rick ruined the hunt this. is not for u. i love the concept of the hunt too! but there r things that hurt me that rick wrote and i explore it a bit so yea tw lesbophobia in here

2.

a)

they are waiting by the caldecott tunnel. they take romans, but they do not step into new rome. they wear a greek blessing that does not translate over the little tiber. reyna can’t remember what the tiber is supposed to protect rome from. 

artemis is with her hunt. she does not appear as diana, not even for her, a saviour of olympus. they take her with them into the woods. as they step away from the busy streets reyna sees the silver glow around the hunters clearer. she isn’t sure if this is what she should be doing. she follows them to their camp hidden in the trees and she pledges herself. 

no one asks her if she is sure. thalia, in a silver circlet that’s never seemed to fit quite right, helps her set up her new tent. reyna wonders for a moment about where it came from, used to fighting for quest supplies at camp jupiter. then she remembers she’s travelling with a goddess. gods can’t hear your thoughts and reyna is grateful for it. she’s wondering why the gods are only generous when it's convenient for them. 

but, she joined the hunt because venus was right. deep down, reyna knows she will never love a boy. she doesn’t know how to. she thought...once, with jason. but even before jason forgot new rome and her, it always felt more like sickness than butterflies when she pictured herself with him. 

“reyna,” thalia says. “you’ll fit right in here. you’re strong” 

“thanks,” reyna tells her. she sits on the silver sleeping bag provided. it feels odd to be surrounded by only one colour when in nature. she has forever to get used to it. thalia leaves her be with a wink. reyna coughs. 

she came to the hunters because she knew she could never love a boy. she’s strong, like thalia says. once, reyna didn't need to be strong. with circe, everything had been taken care of. most of the time reyna is happy with the way her life ended up. 

she should be happy now. 

there’s a howl in the camp. she assumes some of the other hunters are playing with the wolves. aurum and argentum are with hylla. when reyna had gone to artemis she had told her they only took live animals on the path. reyna had known better to argue, but she misses the cool feel of their metal hides as she sheds her new silver parka in her new silver tent and unlaces her silver boots and climbs into her silver sleeping bag. she’ll get used to it. 

b) 

there is camaraderie here. it has been so long since she’s felt like just one piece of a whole. there is something special about running faster than she ever could before, bow out and arrow ready, more sisters than she ever thought she could have at her side. 

reyna breathes the cool air, the air that feels different in her lungs now. the hunt reminds her of her day’s on circe’s island, the same type of liminal space that the island stayed in exists in her now. she likes feeling safe. she likes feeling powerful. there’s a security to the hunt, a promise to fight alongside the strongest maidens of the centuries past. 

this can go for as long as she can keep fighting. as long as she can keep surviving. reyna has always liked that about the hunt, it isn’t a promise of godhood. when orion chased her through the streets of the first place she was foolish enough to call home, the hunt was near. before she joined she saw the death that still haunts the hunt. 

reyna has always been strong. as a member of the legion, and eventually praetor, she had felt it in her skin. it had been her duty to be a line of protection against the world. she left the legion because she didn’t know what she was protecting anymore. she liked making decisions, making things better. one of the things she is most proud of is changing the age of mandatory service, changing the whole concept of mandatory service. she had watched her sister serve a type of servitude to circe, she’d lived it alongside her sister under the pirates before they’d made their way off the island. when frank had taken the position and they had finally been able to stop and talk he had agreed, there was no more place in any “new” rome for child soldiers. no place for a mandatory army. frank had found the army later in life. reyna remembers being twelve and fighting for her life, for her safety, for her ability to choose her future. 

she wears silver now, and it has started to grow on her. she misses the grounding feeling of the gold plate against her chest, her cloak across her shoulders, golden laurels in her hair. but, it had also begun to suffocate her. she’d fought to free children from service. it’s been so long since she was free of service.

a wolf rubs against her leg and reyna grins the way she learned from circe, from hylla, from lupa. thalia is at the front of their pack and she howls with the wolves and reyna feels her heart race. it’s strange, she’s not used to feeling that anymore with artemis’s blessing. reyna brushes it off and stops and pulls her bow in tandem with her sisters. 

then-reyna hesitates for a moment. on the other side of a wolf there is a girl who looks no more than twelve pulling the bow, which is slightly too big, the wrong way. she’s new. artemis found her when she was off on one of her own missions. reyna slings her bow over her shoulder and helps her new sister notch her arrow correctly. the girl grins up at her and reyna freezes at the sight of the girls gapped front two teeth. 

she’s so young. 

reyna wants to say something. ask the girl why she’s in the hunt...ask her if eternal youth is really what she wants. but, artemis calls them all to spread out. there’s a monster nearby. so, she squeezes the girl's shoulder and runs with a grace she’s still learning to account for. 

c)

the girl’s name was lizzie and reyna never learns why she joined. lizzie dies on her third day, a monster no match for a twelve year old girl who didn’t get the chance to learn to draw a bow. lizzie dies and she’s so young and reyna has fought to make sure children can live in peace. this is not a world where twelve year olds fighting monsters is the best they can get. 

lizzie dies, but that is not what makes reyna leave. artemis mourns lizzie in a way that reyna can’t remember seeing in a god. she remembers artemis’s brother, apollo. apollo was learning a world of humanity. reyna thinks that if any god has mastered it, it’s artemis. 

but artemis never did like to live. 

lizzie dies, but it is not the only injustice in the hunt. 

thalia is the lieutenant, she’s artemis’s right hand. she supports artemis in every decision she makes. and when artemis finds two fourteen year old girls giving each other their first kiss in a tent, reyna sees thalia close in on herself as she stands by artemis as the leader of the hunt strips two young girls of the blessing that was supposed to keep them safe. 

_ i pledge myself to the goddess artemis. i turn my back on the company of men, accept eternal maidenhood, and join the hunt.  _

the pledge repeats on loop in her head for weeks. the two were fourteen, they were scared girls thinking about what it meant to like someone else. they didn’t break any promise to a goddess. they were fourteen and turned out of a home that was supposed to protect them. reyna has never forgotten how camp jupiter turned on her at the sound of octavian's pretty words. 

octavian tried to take away the place that had given her safety, he had almost kept her from pushing for what she wanted, tired of leading alone. now, she watches thalia and knows why she doesn’t say anything and wishes she would. 

thalia is the one that reyna goes to when she can’t remember what it felt like to live without the sticky feeling glued to her bones of a corrupted promise to a lying goddess who fancied herself a child. she can’t remember what it felt like to live. 

on reyna’s first day, thalia had shown her to a silver tent with a silver sleeping bag and a silver change of clothes. silver is the colour of the moon and the stars. during the night, lies can twist themselves into looking like the truth. thalia sleeps in a tent next to artemis, their lady never wanting the lieutenant out of her sight. 

“thalia?” reyna asks. she stands outside the opening of the tent. 

there’s shuffling, and then thalia opens the flaps for her. her smile is strained. she wears immortality differently. annabeth was the one to tell reyna why thalia joined the hunt. thalia joined to give olympus time to prepare for a war. she joined the hunt to escape being the chosen one. she joined the hunt to escape certain death. she joined the hunt so she would never reach her sixteenth birthday. 

there are girls in the hunt almost a thousand years old. yet, reyna is almost certain that she is one of the physically oldest girls. it makes her spine chill. thalia gestures for reyna to enter the tent and reyna steps in. 

it’s identical to hers. all the hunters, even the lieutenant, travel light. “thalia,” reyna asks. “has that happened before?”

thalia blinks. she knows what reyna is talking about, reyna can see it on her face. “it’s happened before,” she says. 

“but they didn’t do anything wrong,” reyna says. 

“love isn’t for us,” thalia says. she sounds sad, and reyna bites on her tongue to stop herself from commenting. that type of love isn’t for everyone, not everyone needs it. but reyna has never learned to let go of the dream of it. she hadn’t thought that thalia had either.

“i don’t know,” reyna says. “we never signed off love in the pledge, only men.” that was what made it so easy.

thalia’s eyes start to shine, and reyna wishes she could lean over and wipe the tears away, but that has never been her and she knows now that it doesn’t seem to even be allowed here. “reyna,” thalia tells her, whispering now. “reyna you don’t have to stay here. if you want to live your life, you still have time before everything starts to feel like it’s passed you by.”

reyna thinks she knows the real reason why thalia joined the hunt now. she’s heard the story, thalia had been turned into a tree to save her life for years. eventually, she’d been awoken. but, when she’d regained her physical form and could sense her surroundings, the girl she had viewed as a younger sister had grown up and the boy she’d loved like a brother had betrayed her and everything they’d promised each other. 

life had left her in the dust, and a half life where everything stays the same must’ve felt special to a girl who wasn’t ready to fight a war that could tear down every sense of safety she’d never been able to truly experience. 

“thalia, are you sure you want to stay here?” she asks. 

thalia lets out a little sigh, a laugh trickling out at the end of it. she’s still whispering as she says, “i made a promise to the lieutenant before me. i don’t know how to break it.” there’s something else in thalia’s words that reyna doesn’t understand. she wonders if it’s her place to ask as she nods at her answer. 

“okay,” reyna says. she doesn’t whisper. “i want to leave the hunt. 

reyna leaves the hunt. she goes back to trying to learn how to live a real life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe now i have to actually finish the third part....  
> anyways im @zoenightshadez i love requests and i have a pjo girls discord  
> ty for reading :)


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